1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a projector for forming a projected image by magnifying and projecting luminous flux emitted from a light source device after the luminous flux is modulated.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, projectors have been used in a greater variety of environments. In addition to using projectors for presentations in office meetings or meetings on business trips, projectors are also used at technical meetings in research and development divisions for capturing CAD/CAM/CAE data therein in order to magnify and project the data, for example. Projectors are also used at various seminars and learning courses, as well as in school classes where audiovisual education is performed. Projectors are also used for studying therapeutic methods and for performing medical guidance by projecting medical images and data, such as CT scans and MRI. Projectors are also used for efficiently addressing exhibitions or conventions in which a number of people are gathered.
Projectors must satisfy various specifications and functions since they are presently being used in various diverse environments. This creates a need for various types of projectors, such as light-weight compact models enhancing portability, high-luminance and high-resolution models enhancing image quality, and value-added models capable of being connected to various digital equipment and mobile tools.
Since it is foreseeable that environments in which projectors are used will become even more common and diverse, more advanced value-added projectors are being vigorously developed in light of the new environments in which projectors will be used.
The projectors discussed above include a cooling structure for cooling with cooling air a heat-generating source, such as a light-source lamp, a power-supply unit, and a liquid-crystal panel.
For example, in a related art projector, cooling air is supplied from an air-inlet formed on an outer case by an air-intake fan, and it is exhausted to the exterior of the projector from an air-outlet of the outer case by an exhaust fan after passing through the heat-generating source. In this case, a sirocco fan may be arranged inside the outer case, and cooling air may be blown on the lamp by the sirocco fan so as to be exhausted to the exterior of the case by the exhaust fan.
In such a structure, a lamp-cooling fan that is disposed in the vicinity of the light-source lamp has a rather larger size compared to air-intake fans for cooling other heat-generating sources or an exhaust fan, so that the entire light-source lamp, which is most liable to reach a high temperature in heat-generating sources, is securely cooled by a large amount of air-flow.